Alliance Candidates

The election is coming up fast. All candidates of all parties should be bust campaigning. And you will be considering who to vote for. Between now and the election date I intend to profile some of the Alliance candidates here on this page. Hopefully this will help you decide that we are worthy of your vote. Someone once said that the Alliance was just full of mad dogs and Englishmen. I can assure you that this is not the case. We have a vast array of people from many different walks of life, occupations and ethnicities. If you want to read ahead, visit the Alliance website, all the profiles are there.

Today I would like to start with Kay Murray, Alliance co-leader and candidate for Dunedin South. She is number one on our party list. At the bottom of this entry are her contact details. Feel free to send her a question or two. She will be happy to answer.

Dunedin South: Kay Murray

Name: Kay Simmonds Murray

Candidate Statement:
Kay says, “I am standing as an Alliance candidate in the 2008 election because I believe that the Alliance is a better alternative for every New Zealander than either of the two main parties. The Alliance is different. We are the only party that gives equal weight to the needs of all New Zealanders and that is actively involved in the global movement against war and poverty. Our policies aim to create a fairer society for everyone. “

Candidate Profile:

She was born in 1956 in Lumsden and grew up on a farm in Riversdale in Northern Southland.

She attended Gore High School and Otago University.

She has lived in Dunedin since 1990.

She has been employed for the past fifteen years as the programmes manager for Connections Centre, a centre that provides activity based programmes for adults with intellectual and physical disabilities.

She is a graduate of Otago University (MA education) and Christchurch Teachers College (Teachers College diploma – secondary teaching).

Port Hills: Andrew McKenzie

Name: Andrew McKenzie

Candidate Profile:

Andrew was born and grew up in Christchurch.

He studied law at university before being admitted as a barrister and solicitor in September 1999. He started practise as a barrister sole that year, specialising in employment and criminal/transport law.

Andrew was a foundation member of Health Cuts Hurt, a community group established
in 2003 to oppose cuts to health services in Canterbury. He stood in the 2004 and 2007 district health board elections. Andrew is currently Alliance Party Co-leader, having previously held the office of General Secretary and Canterbury Representiative.

Andrew hopes that the 2008 election will provide a platform for the Alliance to promote further its policies, of greatest interest to Andrew being its industrial relations and justice policies. Andrew is standing again in the Port Hills electorate where he hopes to build support for the Party.”

List: Sarah Campbell

Name: Sarah Campbell

Candidate Profile:
Sarah Campbell is a Dunedin student and graduate of the Political Studies department at Otago University. She attended Logan Park High School. Sarah is one of the party’s two policy coordinators, and a spokesperson on youth issues. She is a co-founder of the Rebel Alliance group at Otago University.

Candidate Statement:
“The Alliance stands for all the things I want to see in New Zealand’s future. Free education, a decent living wage and a progressive tax system would make New Zealand a much fairer society. We need to act on climate change and child poverty now – these are not issues that can be put off. I am standing for Parliament because I see 2008 as an important year for the Alliance and for all New Zealanders. There has never been a time when Alliance policy has been so relevant and so achievable. Under MMP voters don’t have to back the lesser of two evils. A vote for what you really believe in counts.”

List: Jack Yan

Name: Jack Yan

Candidate Profile:Jack Yan was born in 1972 and is a native of Hong Kong. He emigrated with his family to Wellington in 1976, attending St Mark’s Church School, Scots College and Victoria University (from where he graduated with an LL B, BCA (Hons.) and MCA).

While still studying, he founded Jack Yan & Associates, building it into an internationally recognized company in the font business initially. He also started the fashion magazine Lucire, which is published internationally in print and online. His brand consulting business, JY&A Consulting, led him to be appointed to the Medinge Group think-tank in Sweden, where he holds the position of director.

Jack co-wrote Beyond Branding: How the New Values of Transparency and Integrity Are Changing the World of Brands (Kogan Page, London, 2003) with his Medinge colleagues, and Typography and Branding (Natcoll Publishing, Christchurch, 2005).

His connection with the Alliance formally began when he spoke at the Party’s 2007 conference.

He believes in full employment and New Zealand entrepreneurship, believing that Kiwi business people have the creativity to take on the world—but only with right and real-world government policies, not senseless rhetoric.

‘For too long, politicians have robbed New Zealanders of their dignity and the Alliance is the only party which believes we, not foreign corporations, must be in charge of our economic and social destiny,’ he says.

Wellington Central: Richard Wallis

Name: Richard Wallis

Candidate Profile:

Richard was born in Napier at the now closed Napier hospital. He grew up there with his seven brothers and sisters and attended St John’s College in Hastings. After finishing high school he attened Massey University where he gained a BA in Media Studies and communication. He spend 5 years at the Palmerston North Warehouse where he was the head of both the Electrical and Book departments. After this he spent a year completing his post graduate diploma in secondary education and is now an English teacher at Wairarapa College.

Richard lives in Masterton with his partner and their six year old son. He is a member of the Board of Trustees for St Patrick’s school where his son attends. Until recently he was the PPTA executive member for the Wairarapa and Hutt Valley. He is the Alliance Education spokesperson and the Alliance council representative for the Central Districts.

Candidate Statement:

During this election Richard intends on highlighting the need for a party who truely represents New Zealand’s working class and beneficiaries. He is sick of seeing jobs disappearing because of free trade agreements and government policies that focus on making making the rich richer and the poor poorer. He intends to highlight the severe underfunding of New Zealand schools and the detrimental effect this is having on our teachers and school children.

Wairarapa: Amy Tubman

Amy was born in Auckland and grew up in various locations because her father was a primary school teacher who taught in a variety of schools throughout the North Island.

She is currently employed as a merchandiser in Masterton. Before this she worked at the Masterton and Palmerston North branches of the Warehouse before becoming the assistant manager at KFC Masterton.

She lives in Masterton with her partner and their six year old son. She likes reading a range of literay genres with her favourite author being David Eddings. She also enjoys a range of craft activities.

Amy attended Makoura College, and believes it would be a tragic loss to the community if it were to close.

Candidate Statement:

Amy plans to highlight the importance of a free health and education system funded by a fair taxation system. She plans on highlighting the increasing struggle for New Zealanders to make ends meet and the need to replace GST with a fairer tax system, FTT.

Christchurch East: Paul Piesse

Name: Paul Piesse

Candidate Profile:
From the time of adult consciousness, Alliance Party President Paul Piesse has been a convinced and committed socialist. A long time member of the Labour Party, and once a parliamentary candidate for it, he grew increasingly disgusted with its steady march (or obsequious slouch, rather) to the capitalist drum. Thus he became a founding member of the NewLabour Party – now called the Alliance.

For most of his working life Paul has been a Trade Union official in both the public (national and local) and private sectors. He believes that capitalist and consumerist greed corrupts our humanity, and is neither ecologically nor economically sustainable. To save human civilisation we need to behave in a civilised way – co-operative, not competitive attitudes; and with a collective, socialised and democratic economy, not a privatised one. Accordingly, he is a strong supporter of the co-operative revolutionary processes currently underway in Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia, and to a lesser extent in other Latin American countries.

Paul is married, dotes on his wife Cushla, two step-daughters and one (so far) granddaughter; enjoys cooking (and eating…) and listening to music – Celtic, Cuban and chamber, mostly.